Meat and poultry represent the largest segment of the country’s entire agricultural sector, and is estimated to make up six percent of the country’s overall GDP. That means there are a lot of workers in this industry too, 482,100 in the packing and processing industry in 2013. When you factor in distributors and other suppliers that numbers climbs much higher, roughly 6.2 million were employed in 2013. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), injuries and illness rates were two and a half times higher for this industry than the national average. That’s why the administration is focusing on a local emphasis program in Nebraska, an area that houses a lot of big meat packing plants. This industry employs more workers than any other manufacturer in the state, according to Bureau of Labor statistics for 2011, and 7.5 percent of workers suffered some kind of injury or illness at work in 2014. In Nebraska the rates of days off, restricted or transferred because of an injury among meat packing workers were 72 percent higher than other manufacturing workers in the state.

OSHA hopes that this emphasis program will help bring those numbers down and contribute to better safety standards at plants. There will be more inspections in the state, especially among plants that have not been visited in the past few years. Inspectors will make sure employees are properly protected from the hazards of this injury and they will help both employers and employees understand the risks involved and how they can be protected. This emphasis program is expected to continue until the end of September this year, but they may prolong the program if they still think it is necessary to continue with more outreach.

Musculoskeletal injuries are common in this kind of work and workers are susceptible to slips, hearing injuries, biohazards from animals, and injuries from chemicals and heavy machinery.